Don’t Legalize Drugs

"Theodore Dalrymple:" Don’t Legalize Drugs

Here is a six-part video of "Theodore Dalrymple" (Dr. Anthony Daniels) speaking before the Manhattan Institute:
Theodore Dalrymple - Romancing Opiates 1/6 (the first 6 minutes is Myron Magnet)
Theodore Dalrymple - Romancing Opiates 2/6
Theodore Dalrymple - Romancing Opiates 3/6
Theodore Dalrymple - Romancing Opiates 4/6
Theodore Dalrymple - Romancing Opiates 5/6
Theodore Dalrymple - Romancing Opiates 6/6

"A Conversation About Race"

"A Conversation About Race" is an hour long documentary by Craig Bodeker which seeks to highlight the vacuousness of the concept (and accusation) of "racism" in America. In Bodeker's words, "I can't think of another issue that is more artificial, manufactured or manipulated than this whole construct called racism."

"A Conversation About Race" can be seen in six parts on YouTube:
A Conversation About Race 1/6
A Conversation About Race 2/6
A Conversation About Race 3/6
A Conversation About Race 4/6
A Conversation About Race 5/6
A Conversation About Race 6/6

Here is Lawrence Auster's post on this: A documentary on the fraud of "racism"

Matteo and the Robot

On "Cartago Delenda Est:" Dialog Concerning Free Will

A Ghost Story

Whatever may be true of you, Gentle Reader, I don't have the option to be an atheist --

Even were it not the case that I know as a matter of logical reasoning that all variants atheism -- the denial that there exists a Creator, who is a person -- are false, I still would not have the option, rationally or morally, to be an atheist simpliciter.

Unadorned atheism -- the denial that there is a personal Creator -- implies 'materialism' and 'naturalism', and indeed implies 'eliminative materialism.'


Now, even if it were not the case that 'eliminative materialism' is itself absurd, the little "ghost story" I'm about to relate is contradictory to 'materialism' (and to 'naturalism') -- thus, if one accepts this story as true, then logically one has rejected 'eliminative materialism,' general 'materialism,' and 'naturalism.'

The reader, of course, has the option of simply rejecting this story; I do not have that option. To be more precise, I may rationally reject the story only by asserting either that my parents were stupid or that they lied to me.


Here's the story:

When I was an infant, my parents went to visit an older couple form their church.

I was placed on a bed in an upstairs room, with pillows around me to keep me from rolling off the bed, and with a dry-cleaning bag, the wispy plastic film things, under me for obvious reasons. You have to understand, at that time people hadn't really given much thought to how dangerous that is.

So, my parents and their friends are downstairs talking and laughing ... and the tiny little baby is upstairs, asleep.

Suddenly, my father turned white as a ghost, as the saying goes, and then dashed up the stairs. He grabbed me off the bed, and ran back down the stairs and outside, to "give me some air" (silly, yes, as though there is more or better air outside than in, but panic will do that to you).

You see, I was suffocating. Somehow, I had turned over onto my stomach and I was "breathing" the plastic film on which I lay.

======
Understand, I don't present that story as any sort of evidence that Christianity is true; but rather that 'materialism,' and therefore simple atheism, is false.

As I said earlier, the reader is free to reject the story; I am not: not unless I am willing either to assert that my parents were outright lying to me about the incident; or to assert that my mother was too stupid to properly remember whether my father did indeed suddenly panic and *then* run up to rescue the baby, and that my father was too stupid to properly remember whether when he got upstairs I was indeed on my stomach with the plastic film blocking my breathing.

Welcome "follower"

I just discoved/noticed yesterday that this poor little blog has a "follower." I don't know how long this person has been following the blog, such as it is; but Welcome, you!

I guess this means I now have two readers! ;)

And I guess this means that I'll now have to make the effort to keep the blog worth following.

LEAVE David Letterman ALONE!

Concerning the current (as of 2008/06) brouhaha over David Letterman's "joke" about the Palins --

Slightly tongue in cheek, I had thought about composing a rant in the manner of this (disgusting -- if you've seen it once you'll probably not care to see it again) video: LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!

Here, by the by, is an amusing send-up of the above: Leave Chris Crocker Alone!


Now, as any reasonably intelligent and informed person realizes, Letterman's joke was referring to Bristol (the 18 year-old -- who *did* get herself knocked-up), not to Willow (the 14 year-old, who didn't).

And, tasteless though the joke was, it was actually more about Eliot Spitzer and "A-Rod" than about the Palins.

So, in a way -- and even though he probably wouldn't realize it -- Letterman was savaging what his own "liberalism" has done and is doing to our common shared life as a nation.


But ya' know, when it comes down to it, I just can't work up the indignation to seeing "liberals" treated to their own preferred medicine. Sure, I'd much prefer that conservatives never behave in the degraded (and degrading) manner of which "liberals" seem to be so fond. But I understand human nature well enough to know that what goes around comes around -- sometimes, the only lesson people will accept about their erroneous behavior is to experience the full consequences of it.

The Bible as Comedy

Somewhere over the years, I've encountered a statement to the effect that "All good comedies end in a marriage." I don't recall to whom it is attributed.

A few months ago, in that odd moment between sleep and wakefulness, the thought came to me, expanding on the above idea, that: "The Bible is a comedy. And like all good comedies, it ends with a marriage."

Overheard

"Telling a woman to follow her heart is like telling a man to follow his ..."


I think that Gentle Reader knows what the last word is without me explicitly saying it.

Modernism & traditionalism

Oz Conservative: Modernism & traditionalism

A Time for Choosing

Ronald Reagan's famous speech, "A Time for Choosing" (28 minute video)